Icky Four-footed Cane of Weirdness

I actually fell asleep by 2:30 am and then Johns door shut and I did an Emeril. BAM! I'm awake. It's not that I have a low excitability threshold, point in fact I would go as far as to say titillation is not easily triggered. Somewhere along the time-line my adrenal gland developed an effusive predisposition to erraticism. It goes off unpredictably. Something ain't right.

I've been told that women carry the world around on their shoulders. All the tension accumulates in a concentrated area, yet still she smiles. All that energy has to go somewhere. It's one of those places on the human body that cannot be worked around without severing the head. Which is by no means a suggested cure for the covert fashioning of the future dowagers hump; the crone's purple heart, medal of honor and valor come together as one...one big ugly hunchy thing at the base of her once erotic swan-like pedestal to the supreme female power, her brain.

I've always been a bit removed from the cliquish. I never could see the worth of traveling in a collective of giggling breasts that accomplish little more than the encouragement of one another in the development of fantasian ideas regarding their importance in the grand scheme. I just couldn't get excited over their one-dimensional ideals. Not particularly impressed by anyone that felt the need to flock. Freakish? Maybe.

The tension started back then, only I was young enough to be comfortable in my personal design on denial. I figured if I didn't slouch or back down, I held myself straight and fearlessly, I wouldn't end up hunched over a four-footed orthopedic walking stick with an institutional flair. The theory sounded good.

I could be caught in the midst of a blinding blizzard, lost and confused, but I still wouldn't shed a tear. For one, there is no practicality of adding to the already accumulated wetness stinging my face. Second, I'm already blinded by the whiteness of my impending death, why compound the problem? The popular girls would have done the opposite, flagrant hormonal imbalances bouncing off each other like pachinko balls all shiny and dense to the death.
Let's say I survive, and am not exactly awed by my defeating the odds; I would simply dry off, warm up, and sit by a roaring fire for the remainder of the storm calling everyone a dumb-ass that thinks they need to trek the wasteland of stupidity by venturing out in such weather. All that pent up anger at my own moronic self for getting in such a predicament has to go somewhere, right?

I've found the next best thing to wadding up every peeve at the base of my neck is to verbalize... carefully. It would still take the remainder of the next four centuries to release the knotted mass shaping my post-motherhood physique in it's current condition.
I'm on my way to that icky four-footed cane of weirdness, and the hump, and have yet to discover the root of my involuntary adrenalin secretions. Oh well, I'm not going to get excited about it.
word count 525
3/26/2005 6:0 AM

Eruptions of a Reluctantly Receding Hibernal

Do you have satellite TV? We do, but that's only because cable isn't available in sparsely populated areas. Cable is better, trust me. We haven't been too awfully impressed by the service. It's better than not having either. When we first moved onto this farm there was a large television antenna attached to the house near the big crumbling rock fireplace. That should have been a clue. The antenna got three local channels. Not actually three channels, let me clarify, it received two channels, only one came in on two different stations. It also had some chemistry with the local weather. Not a good thing. Whatever initial appreciation we had for the thing was short lived.

It was March when we moved. This particular month tends to herald the transition from Winter to Spring and it's usually a tad violent. The remonstration of a reluctantly receding hibernal erupts in thunder, lightening, rain, hail, cats, dogs, and the occasional trout. On a not-so-good year, tornados have been known to skip through on their wind down this side of Kansas, displacing everything along the way, from Toto to entire towns, grass and all. One year in the not-so-distant past, this state got ripped a new one. Somebody managed to hang onto a healthy sense of humor in the aftermath, in the form of a real estate ad in the local newspaper claiming a $210,000 markdown on account of the house and outbuildings being located somewhere between Sheldon and Stockton Missouri. The pond was still there, however they would not go as far as to say that the fish were. I laughed hysterically and shoved it in an envelope addressed to Jay Leno.

Satellite TV charges an extra fee here for local channel access so we used the pre-installed clothesline conversion kit hugging our gutters. That first season, the lightening was very intimate with us, several times. The satellite box was replaced twice, and the phones fried a little more often. Since all the electrical discharges tended to happen on the south side of the house, in the vicinity of our spiffy newly acquired television antenna, we decided, the darn thing must be attracting all the attention and had to go. It continued to happen. So, still grieving the loss of our local news, we agreed to give it another chance after ripping out the pile of rocks being passed off for a heating alternative.

Since then we have had fewer encounters with the natural energy source that had been dogging us. It seems those stones were not only bad fireplace rock, but they must've been coercing Mother Nature. So, we're okay with the antenna now, and the satellite service is alright also, when we have a clear view of the southern sky. In a weather saturated Mid-West that doesn't happen everyday.
word count 485
3/24/2005 11:16 PM

Dysfunctional Neurological Firing Sequences

Planning a vacation is one of the most exhausting things to do. It'll just wear you out thinking about all the things that need to be synchronized. No wonder it is a thriving business. Well, at least it was a thriving business until third world terrorism became a clear and present danger to all Americans going about their daily lives.

I've been working hard on trying to create a trip that we can all live with. You see, John and I are making a trip to see my mother, which doesn't happen very often. We can't go see Mom without going to see my sister and her family which are only a $39 hop to Burbank. I rarely see them also. And since we're going to be on the West coast I couldn't possibly not drive down to San Diego to visit one of my best friends. A woman that was known to get into all sorts of mischief with me during college and has gone through 19 reconstructive surgeries in the last 4 years. That little video-cam I sent her is fine for the occasional online chat but a weak replacement for physical human contact.

I've been online quite a bit browsing travel specials and deals that are not so special. Boy, are there a lot of them. It's like shopping for a cheap kitchen appliance. Checking out the going rate first and then following up in a desultory fashion with some trips to places like Dent and Ding, hoping to unearth an overlooked treasure in the warehouse of dilapidated department store deviants.

In the meantime I've made several superfluous calls, emails and chatted everyone involved in our trip checking and rechecking to see if things will meld. While chatting up my sister tonight I got a good chuckle out of her bemoaning her husbands disdain over not finding whatever it was he was seeking on Ebay.

She started with reminding me "We don't have cable". And then going on about his bidding in a semi-reclined position across the couch, whining about not being able to find something in the house earlier. She huffed a bit and spat out "We've only lived in this house for 6 years, no wonder you still don't know where anything is!".

She's a teacher, so his dysfunctional neurological firing sequences after a 16 hour day are merely a small stretch for her after spending the entire day surrounded by much shorter people with the same outlook. She teaches 5-6 year olds.

The chat applets are a new experience for my sister. She is just starting to get the hang of it. We were gabbing away while I made reservations when she informed me that her family tends to hover whenever she gets on the computer, buzzing like flies. I told her what I do when John does that. I swat at him. Sometimes it's easier if I just dim the light at my desk so he'll go in search of a brighter light in another room. I got no reply to my suggestions. Go figure.
word count 509
3/22/2005 3:5 AM

Dave, Erma, Brett and Ziggy

I love receiving comments from readers. Positive, negative, it's all good. I think too much stroking causes a persons development to stifle, and too much negativity ? Well, it's just mean man! I got one the other day from an anonymous reader that suggested I read Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man by Fannie Flagg. She said I sort of reminded her of Ms. Flagg. The great thing is, I already have a copy of that book. Of course there aren't many books I don't have a copy of. I haven't read it yet, but I did manage to fish it out of the library overflow and move it closer to the top of the read pile.

So far I've been compared to Dave Barry, Erma Bombeck, Brett Butler and Ziggy on account of my luck, and a few other cartoons. I loved Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe. My favorite part was when they served up my ex-husband as a blue plate special. A fitting end for such a pig, don't you think? So I am honored by the suggested similarity to Fannie Flagg. I only hope I can live up to it. Her books are most excellent.

I recently finished a ghost writing job and decided not to take on anymore so I could focus on work I will get credit for in the future. I'm free! It feels so liberating. Like the halter top revolution.

When I get those emails or posted comments it tells me a lot. Right off it says the person read the whole thing even though they didn't have to on account of it being required reading. It also says that they were provoked into an action. Cool! I've never used the word provoke before in a positive manner. It felt kind of weird. So I smile and utter to myself and the collection of cartoon characters staring down at me from the top of my monitor, "It couldn't have been too awfully boring then."

I'm a bit creative in my use of the English language; I'm not quite Snoop Doggish though. I developed that little flaw in my literacy out of boredom. They say, write what you know and write how you talk, so I'm being true to myself, minus the doodles. To the English Lit Major my writing is probably more accurately described as being something along the line of fingernails on the chalkboard during finals. I never claimed to be a poet even though I do write a lot of poetry. It's one of my vent valves. I let off accumulated pressure by writing some Dr. Seussish love poems, also minus the doodles.

I suppose not getting to take those new high tech computer graphics labs pushed me in a direction I wouldn't have otherwise explored thoroughly, writing. I remember trying to stick it out year after year in the Art department waiting for them to get that lab. I really wanted to animate cartoons. I still do. I was never meant to attend that class. Fate decided the only way to keep me out was to make sure it never opened until after I left the campus to finish out my career as single mom. I never got to go back like I had hoped.

I just wanted to say thanks for making the world a nicer place one anonymous email at a time. Critique away, they shape us creative types in a positive way, unlike over-eating, divorce court or really rotten neighbors.
word count 596
3/19/2005 11:53 PM

Ya Want A Scooby Snack?

Housework is one of those things I prefer to avoid. Not that anyone else will take care of the mess. I guess I shouldn't say mess, I'm not swine, I'm just a little friendly with the dust bunnies. They congregate along the baseboards where they're less likely to end up stuck to the bottom of somebody's shoe and I drop them offerings on occasion so they won't starve. You could say we have a mutual respect for one other.

Sunshine coupled with mild temperatures makes it virtually impossible to focus on indoor activity, no matter how important the rest of the world thinks the task may be. It just doesn't hold a candle to the dire urgency with which I attack leaf raking, mole stomping, and hole filling. The hole filling thing is a stroke of genius I credit to Merlin.

Being of the canine persuasion, my perfect partner in crime eventually gave in to the urge to dig. Apparently much more weight conscious than his human, he has religiously ritualized the act of burying each offering of affection before it is deemed edible. So if there is a beautiful day beckoning me, I simply crack the back door and hand Merlin a Scooby Snack and watch him trot off to one of his favorite stash sites, right next to Johns truck, obviously, so John will do the about face as he's leaving and say, "Honey, your dog dug another hole. You need to fix that before somebody falls in it". I then cross up my face and grudgingly abandon my swiffering and head to the garden shed. Works every time. I love that dog!

Today was a wonderful day. We did the dog cookie thing and then Merlin lounged in his big plaid doggy pillow on the front porch while I nit-picked the flower beds along the front of the house and then heaped the cedar mulch for that neat cedary look. Afterward we took a basket of plants I needed to thin out and hiked down to the creek where we plopped them along the stream bed that runs through my mushroom hunting heaven. While there we gathered some moss to plant between the path stones in the herb garden and watched the sunset while chucking clods of dirt at miscreant mousers attempting to make my mint stink. Today I discovered the pyramid shaped mounds that gave the mint section a striking resemblance to the Valley of the Kings. Merlin and I decided that we wouldn't be growing any mint or anything else there if we didn't do something about it. So we'll squirt them, shoo them, and knock them in the head with dirt clods until they find another soft piece of earth in an unimportant corner somewhere. It's not like we're lacking in land.

Tomorrow I'll do that housework I didn't have enough time for today... unless the sunshine comes back and asks us to come out and play, in which case I will be told to train my dog or fill in his handy work once again.
word count 507
3/19/2005 0:2 AM

The Hibernating Bear That Can't Tell Time

Ah, Spring is in the air! I can tell. It's not just the sight of the returning travelers in their brightly colored plumage; It's not the lush green leaves that have poked through the mulch and the sweet smelling sunshine of the narcissus. Spring has truly arrived when my weary, late night TV, night owling can't stop my internal clock from going off at 5 a.m. every morning, frost or no.
I'm worse than a kid at Christmas. I'm the hibernating bear that can't tell time. March is not exactly the true Spring, not in Missouri; Maybe on a good year.

I've seen heavily laden branches bend under the weight of snow and ice this time other years. So, why do I start the R.E.M. confusion now? I would blame the teasingly perfect days that have unnaturally peppered our winters. Flukes, or carefully planned interruptions? They do help me maintain a semblance of sanity in the otherwise cold months. They are like that little rainbow laser beam set in motion by a random breeze on hopeful, dangling crystal prisms, putting the color back into a stark landscape for a blink. A small reminder that there is life at the end of the storm. More color than your flat plasma TV can offer with HDTV. More excitement than a Pentium 4 with broadband, more action than your Play Station, and it's free.

I have been awake for a few hours now, sitting at my desk, anxiously watching the frost fade on the waking buds and watching my cheeky guests empty the feeders I filled less than two days ago. If it were warm enough for us hard core gardeners to be out dallying, my resident pygmy lion pride would be stalking those flashes of yellow, red and blue. Instead, they flock safely outside my windows while the hunters curl up in the suspended wagons inside my garden shed that are conveniently lined with carpets and discarded bedspreads.

I've stumbled through Winter by holding onto the dream of Spring. We all have our own definition of the seasons. A lot of it has to do with your geography. For some it's the promise of earthy stains on our knees, but for Southern Californians like my sisters family, it's bikini waxes, pool parties, and 15 hour stints at Disneyland. Whatever your idea of heaven, the widening grin of the adolescent sun god will bring a youthful vigor to your step and joy to your heart.
word count 422
3/16/2005 8:0 AM

I Want To Be A Capitalist Pig

School isn't for everybody, as my neighbor will attest too. Some of us get through school and then swear an oath to ourselves to not waste any more time on such self inflicted tortures. While others like myself are gluttonous masochists.

For years I operated under the assumption that becoming a mother at an early age constituted stupidity in the third degree. That left me wide open to ridicule, especially after my children and I found ourselves being replaced by newer models. That and the blonde thing. It's not easy rising above the stereotypical. Not at a time when it seems that every decision I had made thus far was a bad one. Divorce court will do that.

That was several lifetimes ago. I now feel that having fully grown children at a fairly young age is sort of a second chance since I am still relatively youthful. I never gave myself credit for the accomplishment potpourri I was stock piling. I no longer underestimate myself; I think.
Everyone has the capability within themselves to do great things. If you want to approach it from a more modest stance you could say, anyone can be a catalyst effecting positive change in the world. That works too. It's of equal importance.

Personally, I don't believe I've ever done anything truly great, but I have managed to stumble through without causing too much damage. I don't think all the classes I've taken make me smarter, in fact, if I was so smart I wouldn't have needed to take them in the first place. A college degree doesn't make a person better than anyone else, simply better qualified to hold certain positions in the business community. It can work for you or against you. There's the claim of under-qualification and over-qualification. It's illegal to just come out and say you're not giving a person the job because you don't like the way they smell.

Today I started another class, a business class. I always find the great diversity of motivations that bring a class together interesting. We all came with our own dreams in tow. Part of me thinks that on some subconscious level we take such classes that ask us to wear our deepest desires on our sleeves to acquire validation and reassurance that we aren't idiots. The other part of me just wants to take advantage of our farms location-location-location as the instructor put it, without breaking any laws. Most want more. That's a good thing. That's what drives our capitalist society. It has made our country what it is today; that, and those sneaky package deals pushed by lobbying corporate giants.

So, maybe I'll open my little corner stand, I might even sell lots of produce and what-not. The trick isn't in making lots of money, it's in finding something you love to do, manifesting it and not losing everything in the process, and most importantly, doing it legally. Why compound a business disaster with legalities? Take a class or two. It won't hurt....much.
word count 490
3/15/2005 0:24 AM

All-around Maintenance Guy

All Around Maintenance Guy

Thousands of People and a Mess O' Hogs

Do you believe in fate? Destiny? I do. Maybe that's why I named my first born Destiny.
Life is an intricately woven web, all our lives and actions intertwined. We've all got our stories. Sometimes the what-if's are answered, other times we wonder for the rest of our Earth-bound lives.
I was wondering this past week why we of all people found the little angel on the highway Sunday. This time the answer came quickly. I figure 5 days was a rapid turn around considering some things that happened to me in 1965 are still a mystery.

While we don't live in a big city where people are piled on top of one another in high rent cubicles, there are quite a few sprawled across the countryside. You see, around here local is considered to be within 50 miles of your home. That encompasses roughly... let's see...tiny towns speckled all over and a small town every ten miles, a larger small town spaced at every twenty, and a few towns that aren't so small, but aren't really humongous. Thousands upon thousands of people and in our area a mess o' hogs too.

So can someone tell me the odds of us picking up the nephew of the man we had hooked my daughter up with for farm maintenance work? Although I am still unclear as to the purpose of the whole action-reaction web in this instance, I am finding the connection. Destiny has rented a farm for her husbands latest stint in the third-world-war-zone, has two small boys of her own and needed someone to do some maintenance during his absence.

I hope these interlaced happenstances are a good thing. Only time will tell. From what I understand so far I'm thinking that maybe he will be in the position to protect my grandsons from harm sometime in the near future, like we did his nephew.

Affection for innocents is a binding emotional journey that I personally am always willing to undertake. Maybe he is too.
word count 346
3/11/2005 8:40 PM

Dysfunctional Reporting

We get pretty starved for real news in this house. The kind you can only find in a real newspaper. Sure, we have newspapers here, but they're not real. They're some sort of small town mutation of journalism. You can read extensively about who visited who, who died, who was arrested and who won the girls sophomore basketball tournament in your county and when and where all the bored housewives clubs are to meet next . That's it. No world news. As far as the papers in this county are concerned the biggest natural disaster to hit this century was a string of tornados that tore through here a couple of years ago. There has never been a tsunami in Missouri, so the average person feels disconnected from the whole issue. It's too surreal.

I have to give them credit for the 9/11 disaster. They are still showing reruns. I caught it around 5 am, right after the in depth interview with the plastic surgeon that recently introduced Botox to the locally affluent.

I was fortunate enough to have a Las Vegas newspaper find its way into my hands this month. In it I found many interesting items.
Palestinians welcomed freed prisoners.
It told of the Lebanese protest of Syrian dominance.
Kitty clone Peaches and her DNA donor, Mango made the front page as well. Wow, if I chose to spend my retirement funds...all of them...I could have one of my flea factories duplicated. How fascinatingly Beverly Hills-ish.

I even discovered that one of my nieces friends is holding her own in a Las Vegas show at the T.I. and on a television show called American Idol. The show is not available here, but the redneck counter-part, The Nashville Star does get plenty of coverage(I'm not complaining, I like that show).

The item I found of the greatest interest, as I have been sick since November, was the article on the avian flu pandemic approaching. It seems that poultry in Asia have been dropping from an influenza with an ability to rapidly mutate. It's highly adaptable and will soon develop into a world-wide killer of the human species. At present the mortality rate is about 72 percent of identified patients (That was back in February).

I had chickens. I've had all sorts, in different States. In California I lived in a high desert valley where chickens were wiped out often, including mine. A chicken with sinusitis is a sad sight. Their little sinuses swell up so big it looks like their little faces are going to pop. I really don't want to see people in that state. Especially not myself. Oh wait, I AM in that state.
Leaves a person to wonder if it isn't already here. I have never been so sick, for so long before. I felt like my face was going to pop many times. Lucky for my housemate with the weak stomach, it hasn't yet.

While I feel informationally starved, I must appreciate at the same time, the simplicity of this life. I dreamt of it for years and through many miles of traffic jams, which is something I not so grudgingly gave up to make the transformation to midwest farm life. So bring on the bake sales and the small town papers! This is still heaven!
word count 569
3/10/2005 11:24 PM

Angel In a Yellow T

Yesterday I had a very important call to make before going on a shopping binge with my daughter and her two small boys. I dialed the local police department and asked after my mysterious new friend, a two foot tall boy in a yellow t-shirt with a glowing smile. We found him wandering over the railroad tracks and down the highway Sunday night. A terrifying experience for me.

I was told something that bothered me even more than the original crisis, the boy is deaf. He smiled real big and never said a word; he looked as if he didn't understand anything we were saying and stared intently at my face when I was talking. It made me wonder. We had to bring him to the authorities as he didn't appear to know how to say anything. So he never would have heard a train coming, or a car crawling up the highway behind him. So, as if it couldn't be worse that someone let a baby disappear without noticing his absence, they let a known deaf baby disappear alone without noticing. Isn't there a law somewhere in the books that they were breaking by the irresponsibility that could have resulted in his death? Did the local yokel officer do anything about it besides just returning him to his parents?

My call answered a few questions and brought up a lot more. My daughters shopping spree never really gelled; we found no bargains. And I became a little more over protective of my grandsons; As if I wasn't a little excessive already.

I digressed comment on the phone and will again when I see his parents, which is inevitable. I can also honestly say that I will be keeping an extra close eye out for that boy for the rest of my life, so they best become more attentive. Our town is a small town, so I'm sure I'll cross paths with him many more times, only I hope he will always be in the company of responsible adults.
word count 346
3/9/2005 0:7 AM

Terror Comes in Small Packages

There are three kinds of nightmares.
Type 1, is the typical visitation by monstrous creatures.
Type 2, things that have already happened and just won't go away, you continue reliving them over and over and over...
Type 3, stuff that you're afraid of, suppressed during daily life, only to haunt you in the dream state when the brave front comes down, peer pressure no longer an issue clouding our judgment.

Like I've talked about in the past, I don't sleep well. Not because of nocturnal visits by Frankenstein, Dracula or clowns. I don't experience the high anxiety episodes, like going to school naked, being lost, or getting turned away at the pearly gates. I do however have the occasional traumatic, where I've lost one of my children or grandchildren. My kids are always kids in my dream state and they never listen (not that different from the waking state). They never get any older than 10 even though one is pushing 30 in my reality. That part is a little wishful thinking. How perfect would the world be if my daughters never started the cycle, never got to first base, never needed me to do their taxes?

The biggest terror would be losing someone I cared about. Maybe that's why I don't drink milk. It brings to life my fear every time I see a picture of a lost child on the carton. I may even have to stop going to Walmart. The Missing Children's bulletin board sends me home with tears in my eyes. That, and the fact that I never get out of there for less than $50.

Tonight I fear, is going to be one of those lost infant nightmare nights. Today we went to town (we live in the country) to pick up a pizza to enjoy along with the free preview weekend premium channel programming. On the way home, we picked up a little something extra.
We were creeping along, like we do when John's driving (he's such an old woman), when he said in a startled tone "Is that a kid? Running down the street....there!".

I couldn't believe my eyes, he was so small. I wouldn't have seen him if he wasn't wearing a yellow t-shirt. I started to open the truck door while we were still moving. I was going to bolt for him. John crept up a little further and yelled at me "If you're going to get him, hurry up!"
I hopped out and he ran right up to me brightly smiling. He couldn't have been two years old. Wearing mucker's and jeans, with a little brunette tail dangling from the back of his haircut. He had just come over the railroad tracks and was running down the street right towards us. There was nobody around. I didn't see any frightened parents screaming frantically, no open gates or doorways within sight. Two more cars pulled up, one from each direction and asked if we were his parents and I asked them if he looked familiar at all. They were from the country too and couldn't identify him. We felt it best to take him to the police department since there was no clue as to where he came from and he certainly didn't seem to understand anything we asked. If he did, he wasn't talking, just smiling. So innocent and happy to see someone. He only fidgeted a second until I said, we would find his mommy. We then got into the cab and headed toward the local police department. We hadn't gone two blocks and John said he had just seen a policeman and we should take the boy to him. It's such a tiny town we both doubted someone would be in the office on a Sunday evening.

We got back to the quickie mart and the officer was gone, but we knew one lived over a block so we knocked on his door. His adolescent girls went directly to doting over the baby and took him in the house and we left our information with the gentleman. He looked as shocked and pained by the small boys predicament as we were and went straight to making his official calls.

I've been fighting back the tears all day so as not to appear the silly woman that I am. Someone was living my fear today. Worst than that, they recklessly and irresponsibly allowed this angel to wander across busy railroad tracks and down the highway alone. How long had he been out by himself? Did they even notice he was missing? Were they on drugs?

I keep thinking how he looked like my little boyfriend Haven when he was smaller. The way he was running along told me he must be 1 1/2 years old. They have a certain gate at that age due to the diaper. So my mind has been preoccupied with 'what if's?'. What if the train had come through? What if he was on the other side of the highway when the other car came over the railroad hump blindly? What if we weren't there? What if someone else didn't see him? What if he wasn't wearing a yellow t-shirt?
Tomorrow I will call and ask after the child. I'm glad he's safe. I'm furious that whoever was watching him was...well...not watching him.
word count 896
3/6/2005 11:43 PM